Price Research: Our research indicates that 8GB Patriot SuperSonic Xpress USB 3.0 Flash Drive is $6 lower (55% savings) than the next best available price from a reputable merchant with prices ranging from $11 to $22. - yuugotserved

Hello all, I've been looking for a pretty speedy 8gb USB 2.0 drive. I stumbled on this deal for a speedy USB 3.0 drive that also posts some good numbers for USB 2.0. It is one of those spring loaded ones too (if you like that).

This was the review that won me over:
I was stunned at how fast this drive is even with USB 2.0. Using Crystal DiskMark with a 100MB file, it hit 32 MB/sec Read and 20 MB/sec Write with USB 2.0. With USB 3.0 the numbers were 64 MB/sec Read and 24 MB/sec Write. So, although USB 3.0 doubled the Read speed, the Write speed was not much different and still very fast under USB 2.0.

I've been looking for speedy USB 3.0 drives as well and the SanDisk Extreme appears to be the fastest in benchmarks. Amazon had it on lightning sale earlier today...although not much of a discount on the 16 GB. It was $21.99 and normally it was $24.99. Bigger discounts on the 32 and 64 GB. I jumped on it though since I've been eyeing it for a while.

A review for the SanDisk Extreme says he hit 197 MB/s read and 153 MB/s write. To hit these speeds you will most likely need a SSD hard drive and of course USB 3.0

Wow , those are some eye popping numbers... so what do you think of the numbers this one supposedly puts up? Obviously not the fastest, but middle of the pack to middle high?

Maybe middle of the pack, but I think it might be more a budget drive. Then again on an 8 GB drive, speed may not matter that much. Write speed seems sorta low if you look here - http://usbflashspeed.com/8Gb

This deal isn't that great, and OP posted wrong data transfer numbers (and yes, those can vary depending on the flash maker as well as the quantity of flash--Patriot doesn't make its own flash, and all else equal one would expect the 16GB to have a higher theoretical max speed depending on how good the embedded controller is). The actual claim is on the Amazon page that he linked to, however:

I have a Kingston DataTraveler Elite 16GB that I bought for $11 without rebate that does 70MB/s read 30 MB/s write. In fact it actually goes slightly faster than that according to CrystalDiskMark. But the real benefit is in small file random 4k read/write speeds which are hard to find results for... but important when copying smaller word, text, and excel files, and the Patriot Supersonic Express is unlikely to be fast doin gthat. It also requires a rebate and stamp for a lousy $5. Don't get me wrong, this is an OK deal, but definitely not slick. (Edit: 14 MB/s random 4k is pretty good and changes my mind a little.. it's better than OK deal but still not slick due to the rebate requirement, especially if you don't have stamps handy.)

If the ratio of gb to $ is more than half then it's not worth it. If it was $4 then it would be an ok deal. this deal is a baiter deal....
Look at the 32 gb sony class sd card on the same page.....14.95 for 32 gigs...better deal imo.

If the ratio of gb to $ is more than half then it's not worth it. If it was $4 then it would be an ok deal. this deal is a baiter deal....
Look at the 32 gb sony class sd card on the same page.....14.95 for 32 gigs...better deal imo.

Um, no. For most people, the top priority should be data integrity/reliability, followed by long-term performance (believe it or not each USB flash drive has a controller and depending on that and the firmware, it can mean good or bad news for write amplification, durability, and long-term speed... similar to how SSDs can vary widely on long-term performance), followed by a tie between speed, capacity, and price. A huge but slow drive isn't that great for most users. Same thing if it's super-fast but holds only 1GB. Also, sometimes it's good to have multiple smaller USB flash drives, like if you keep some around for booting computers with various OSes and programs.

This is a handy site: http://www.whoratesit.com/Best-Fl...mparison/1 Unfortunately it doesn't include the Supersonic Xpress but it gives you some idea of what's out there. EDIT TO ADD: Actually it's there, rated no. 20 and with pretty good 4k read speeds.. that changes things a little as I think it'd be good as a small boot drive or for smaller files.

That Sony card on frontpage right now a) is not a USB flash drive so you'd need a card reader for it, and b) at max read 22 MB/s and min write speed 10 MB/s it's much, much slower.

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